


Revolution

by midnightsnapdragon



Series: Nostalgia [6]
Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Angst, Mourning, Post-Revolution, Revolution theme, The Lunar Chronicles Ship Weeks, Tragedy, tlc ship weeks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8772067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightsnapdragon/pseuds/midnightsnapdragon
Summary: This was written before Winter came out, for the 2015 Mini Ship Weeks theme "Revolution". Just ... for the record.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written before _Winter_ came out, for the 2015 Mini Ship Weeks theme "Revolution".
> 
> Just ... for the record.

**i.**

Artemisia Hall towered above its crystal throne. Dim and dusty and empty, with the fiery orange of a sunset flooding in through the clear walls, it looked as if no one had set foot there for a thousand years. It felt old, and tired, with all the deathly silence of the cosmos.

Three figures, silhouetted black against the dying sunlight, crouched huddled around something on the floor. The smallest one was crying into her hands, fair hair sticking to her cheeks. Another, with black bangs falling into his eyes, kneeled closer than the rest of them, his eyes shut tight.

They were looking at a body.

Too pale, barely breathing, dark red spilling from her side. Fingers halfheartedly clamped over the wound.

A few yards away, another body lay in the dust. Crumpled and motionless, it looked small in the cavernous room. The white gown, once fit for a queen, was disheveled and torn and bloodstained, settled over her like a ragged shroud. One that fit the dead woman’s deeds.

She was alone. Forgotten. No one was coming to mourn her.

A silver crown had fallen from her head, and a bloody knife was clutched in her lifeless hands.

**ii.**

Emperor Kaito, leader of the Eastern Commonwealth, knew his most wanted fugitive was capable of a great many things.

Not the least of which included escaping a prison of highest security, evading the considerable EC armed forces, and kidnapping him from his own palace. Cyborg, Lunar, princess … once upon a time, he’d thought that Linh Cinder had no more surprises for him.

He should have known better.

Kai had seen her fight Lunar monsters like a one-woman army; he’d watched as she faced down Queen Levana herself. For every time she’d fallen down, beaten and exhausted and afraid, she had pulled herself back together and remained strong for what she had to do. Again and again and again.

People died in wars, yes. But somehow he’d always believed that Cinder would remain a constant, a light to hold onto amidst the grim shadow of war.

It was so easy to think that she was invincible.

Even now, when she lay mortally wounded with her cheek against the marble floor, unable to summon enough breath to even stir the dust motes. Even now, with her grip on his hand slackening with every minute, he refused to believe that she would never get back up again.

Wolf, Scarlet and Thorne were somewhere in the palace, holding off the guards – they might not even know that Levana was dead yet.

But Kai was here, frozen in disbelief at her side, and his heart seemed to be splitting. Cress had lowered her head in a vain attempt to hide the hot tears that dripped down her cheeks. And Iko, a silicon-and-steel android, took Cinder’s head in her lap and began stroking the matted brown hair, looking for all the world like she was about to cry.

When Cinder drew a ragged breath, something bubbling sickeningly in her lungs, they all leaned closer.

“Levana?” she croaked, opening her eyes to slits.

“Dead,” Kai whispered.

Turning her head toward him, squinting through tired eyes, the corners of her mouth twitched into a smile. “Bitch put up a fight,” she murmured, lips barely moving.

Iko chuckled softly, but her eyes were dark. “I’ll say.”

When Cinder’s eyes slipped shut, they all tensed. Iko pressed two fingers against her jugular, nodded, relaxed. She was just unconscious.

Behind them, a crash echoed through the hall as the double doors slammed open. They all started, but it was Jacin, sprinting towards them with a white medical kit in his hand.

Winter was on his heels with billowing black hair and wild fear in her amber eyes. When she saw Cinder on the floor, she stopped dead in her tracks; the blood drained from her face, lips open in horror. _No,_ she mouthed.

Jacin half-slid into a crouch at Cinder’s side and examined the wound. He paled, then popped open the white box. Kai watched his face as he frantically scanned the contents – bandages, cotton, rubbing alcohol, a syringe, several carefully labelled poison antidotes.

“Please, Jacin,” Iko said in a low voice, cradling Cinder’s head. _“Please.”_

“What happened?” he muttered, riffling through the kit.

Cress hiccupped. “Cinder overpowered her with the gift. But … Levana stabbed her first.”

From where she stood by the doors, Winter collapsed to her knees, hands over her mouth, eyes spilling over with tears as she stared unseeing at Cinder’s body. Tipping her head back, she let out a chilling wail that broke through the silence of the hall, saturating the emptiness.

Shaking his head, Jacin bent over Cinder, putting his ear to her mouth. Listening to her gurgling breaths. When he pulled back, there was a frightening deadness in his eyes: resignation.

“What is it?” Kai demanded. When Jacin met his eyes, he refused to flinch at their coldness. “Do something!”

“I can do nothing,” Jacin said quietly. “She has a punctured lung and her stomach is ruined. She’s losing too much blood, too fast.”

Kai snarled at him. “Then send for advanced medics!”

“I _can’t,”_ Jacin snapped. The ice in his eyes seemed to shatter, and shining through was a fierce anger. “Don’t you get it? She has _minutes,_ if that, and any medics are out there nursing the citizens of Artemisia. She’ll be dead before anyone can reach her.” He said this matter-of-factly, yet when he looked down at Cinder, there was an almost resentful misery in his face. 

Kai drew back, something hollowing out inside him. Jacin was right. The people were devastated after the Battle of Artemisia. No one would know that Linh Cinder was dying. 

His chest seized up as he looked at her – she who had come back from the dead and defied all odds, she who had fought Levana and won, she who had saved the world. She who meant so much to him, honest and real and brave. 

Someone like that wasn’t supposed to die and leave them all behind, leave them for someplace they couldn’t follow.

 _Minutes._ In a few minutes, she would be gone. 

Cinder opened her eyes again – and her body jerked in a violent coughing fit, blood spattering the floor. Kai, Jacin, and Cress drew in a collective breath; Iko’s eyes widened.

Seeing the motion, Winter picked herself up and half-stumbled across the hall, coming to her knees at Cinder’s side.

“Selene?” Her voice was tremulous, plaintive.

Cinder’s lashes fluttered. She must have been in terrible pain, but she managed half a smile. “You’ll be a good queen,” she whispered. “Better than I could’ve …”

Winter’s lip trembled.

 _No, no._ Kai shifted closer. “Cinder, just hang on. Iko’s already commed a medic; you can still … someone can –“

Cinder wheezed a chuckle, as if to say, _don’t be so naïve._

Kai winced. He could feel the heat behind his eyes, how his throat was closing up. Even now, on her deathbed, she chastised him for optimism. “You survived a fire, Cinder. You were half-dead and almost irreparable and _you survived._ You can survive this too.” He didn’t believe she was dying, not really. 

“No, Kai,” she whispered. Her eyes were losing focus; she stared through him, past the palace to someplace far away in the galaxy. “My work here is done.”

Then Cinder’s gaze fixed on his, full of love and a wry kind of sadness. “I wish …” She coughed and relaxed back against Iko’s lap, never taking her eyes from his. “I wish we could have had … more time.” She glanced around at the faces surrounding her – allies. Friends. Family. “All of us.”

Cress clapped a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. Jacin looked away.

Iko drew a strand of brown hair away from Cinder’s eyes, looking down at her best friend with more love than some humans could ever comprehend. “Cinder –“

“Cremate us both.” Her voice was soft now, weak. Already fading. 

They all leaned closer to hear better. “What do you mean?” Iko whispered.

Cinder sighed through her nose and closed her eyes. The pain smoothed from her features, fading into serenity. “Levana and me,” she murmured. “It’s only fitting …”

\---

_Please review._


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